Aussie Crypto Operator Lays off 30% of Staff Citing Crypto Winter: Report

The Australian cryptocurrency operator – Banxa – believes the ongoing bear market will be present for at least another year, which is why the company decided to dismiss almost half of its employees.

• Prompted by the cryptocurrency bull market in 2021, Banxa experienced significant progress and expanded its team to 250 people. It also stretched outside Australia as some of its employees are based in Indonesia.
• However, due to the recent bearish market movements, Banxa had to introduce certain cost-cutting measures, such as canceling events and reducing the total workforce to 150 individuals.
• Following the changes, the company will focus its operations on the Australian and the Philippines markets. It is worth noting that European Managing Director – Jan Lorenc – will also depart from the firm, meaning that Banxa’s ambitions to expand on the Old Continent will be halted for now.
• In an email addressed to the employees, CEO Holger Arians explained that the organization must take “decisive actions to reduce costs now, or else our company won’t be able to succeed over the long run.”

“While we have made a number of budget cuts, our employee costs remain too high for us to be able to continue to operate in our current structure … we had hoped to make gradual adjustments to Banxa’s business, but macro conditions accelerated our timeline,” he added.

• Despite the changes, Arians still believes his firm could emerge as an important infrastructure player in the Web3 universe.
• In his view, the crypto winter will most likely continue for another year, while the USA could enter into a recession.
• Leading participants in the cryptocurrency space, including Gemini, Coinbase, and Bybit, also cut down their staff members. The exchange run by billionaire twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss said it will part with 10% of its staff.
• Coinbase announced it will lay off 18% of its total workforce (or 1,100 employees), while Bybit did not disclose an exact number of the redundancies.